Canes Crashing and Burning Tomorrow?

That's what most of the experts think. However many of these so-called experts have yet to see Miami play this season. That having been said St Mary's is a better team than Miami and should win the game. The Hurricanes are still a year away from being a truly dangerous team, in the sense that they are not yet a team that is ready to make a Sweet 16 type run. Why? Miami's scoring options are limited and as we have seen all year Miami must slow games down and force a sloppy half court oriented game to beat anyone capable of making either the NCAA or the NIT. The amazing thing is that Miami has been so successful at dictating the pace of most games they've played in that they find themselves a #7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Miami's half court defense is also about as good as it gets in the ACC.

St Mary's likes to run and Miami doesn't. Miami doesn't score well in transition often times blowing layups or turning the ball over and does a bad job of stopping the ball when other teams run, as our friend Nate Skinner pointed out on this week's Canes Rising Radio podcast. Miami's transition game is terrible, probably one of the worst in a power conference, yet Miami is in the NCAAs. So basically, Miami tomorrow must dictate tempo, play strong up front and value possession. It's not impossible, because after all any team that can win nine games against ACC opposition and ten games against teams playing in the post season has something going for it. But Miami is still a year away, and an addition of a potential superstar in DeQuan Jones away from being a legitimate Sweet 16 contender. So regardless of the outcome tomorrow, everyone should enjoy Miami's return to the big dance and understand we are supporting a program on the upswing (unlike UM Football which is clearly on a downswing) and that regular NCAA appearances should be the norm going forward.